Thursday, April 8, 2010

East-West matchup

Starting pitcher:
M.C. O'Connor

The 2009 Atlanta Braves "underperformed" their Pythagorean projection by FIVE games, finishing 86-76 (3rd place), 7 GB the NL-champ Phils. They were 5th in the NL in RS with 735 and 4th in RA with 641. Braves fans can be forgiven for thinking they "shoulda beena contendah" with those numbers. This year's lineup features aging stars like Chipper Jones and Troy Glaus as well as young studs like Brian McCann and Yunel Escobar. The Giants assigned their über-prospect Buster Posey to the minors, but the Braves put 20-year old Jason "Heymaker" Heyward in their Opening Day lineup and he hit a 3-run HR his first time up. Here's a look at the everyday lineup with their 2009 wOBA and CHONE 2010 projected wOBA:

Note that wOBA or "weighted on-base average" is scaled like OBP, that is, .400 is outstanding, .330 is average, .300 is poor. This looks like a pretty good hitting team, and I'm curious how our pitching will do against some tough outs instead of the fodder we (mostly) saw in Houston.

The pitching matchups are Tim Hudson against Jonathan Sanchez in the Opener, and Derek Lowe against our No. 5, Todd Wellemeyer, on Saturday. The website says TBA for the weekend games--I wonder if the Giants will move Timmy up because of the off-day today. I don't see why this early in the season. I'm going to miss Saturday's game so I hope Tim pitches Sunday when I can watch.

1 comment:

The Giants are the only undefeated team in the majors. Wouldn't it be fun to keep that up a while longer?The success of J Sanchez this year is one of those key indicators of the Giants' chances in '10.